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I seriously don’t understand why anybody would teach children that they should practice abstinence. Children can’t really help themselves, especially in their mid-teens, when they experience all these new things happening to their bodies and when they get all kinds of urges and want to explore their limits.

This is why everybody should get sex education.

Luckily this is how it worked for me and my sister. Not only did my parents teach us about sex, our schools also had sex ed in their curriculums, usually as a part of biology lessons. We were taught everything from how an egg gets fertilized to how to practice safe sex including putting a condom on a banana.

Of course there are teens who think that they don’t need to practice safe sex, that they won’t get STDs or they won’t get pregnant (and soon realize how wrong they are), but most teens and young adults are smart enough to buy the condoms and get on the pill to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs.

I feel that teaching “abstinence only” is like stirring glowing embers of a fire. You tell children that there’s something they should not do, and it’s the only thing they’ll want to do. And when they do it, and have not been taught about safe sex, it’ll turn into a disaster.

Children need to be taught that there’s nothing wrong with sex, as long as they know how to protect themselves and their bodies. And they need to be taught to be responsible to meet the consequences, if something doesn’t go exactly as planned.

I was lucky to be taught all these things, and I grew up to be a responsible, sexually active young adult, and I know the importance of safe sex – lessons I am passing on to Regan.